slow burn
by wistfulwhispers
Summary: it may have taken a while but falling in love with you was inevitable.


**DISCLAIMER:** I do not own Naruto.

**A/N: **I'm still reeling from Chapter 693 and it's inSANE how quickly things picked up. The aftermath of war is usually filled with remembered goodbyes and reunions, but noPE, not in this series. I just want my Team Seven bbys to be together again (and ofc for my OTP Sasusaku to finally become canon). So here's a little something inspired by this chapter and I set it post-canon to everything. I promise I'm trying to find inspiration for a multi-chap fic but one-shots are sO much easier to write!

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**slow burn**

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She is making chamomile tea on a Thursday night when a certain thought makes its way into her mind. She has confessed her love for him twice, he has called her annoying thrice, and he has left her countless times. But who has been keeping count? A soft sigh escapes her chapped lips and her mouth twists in bitter self-loathing as she marvels at the fact that she has allowed herself to be in such a weak position one too many times. She stares at a lit candle on her windowsill and watches the only source of light in the room. The slow burn of scented wax and bridges makes her feel an overwhelming sense of longing for what once was and what never will be.

The tea is hot against her tongue but she's used to the scorch. Her eyes go out of focus as she lets the surface of the mug warm her clammy hands. She hates herself every night for getting like this when she thinks of him. It shouldn't be this way.

A consistent knock snaps her back into the present. She is not ready for the gaze that meets her when she opens the front door. Obsidian, obsidian, obsidian. That's all she sees and she stares at him for a few moments before she remembers to harden her features and add poison to her voice. She tells herself it's systematic but no part of her finds the truth in those words.

"It's almost midnight and I'd appreciate it if you'd get off my porch if you have nothing to say." She speaks first, always, trying to sound as biting as the gnawing feeling in her gut.

"I'm sorry." He says.

"I don't care." She says.

"You don't get it." He starts, but she narrows her eyes and bristles at the irony.

"_I _don't get it?" She snaps. "Okay."

She's tempted to slam the door in his face but she holds on to whatever dignity she still has left and for the sake of politeness, resorts to leaning on her doorframe and pinching the bridge of her nose until she has to close her eyes.

He takes this opportunity to study her. After the war, she had avoided him at all costs, constantly turning down Naruto's invitations for Team Seven dinners and requesting a separate training session with Kakashi. One year later, her hair had grown longer since he last saw her and her cheekbones had become more prominent. Rose lips were now drawn into a flat line and her emerald eyes were hidden from view. Porcelain skin with a tint from the shadows made her seem to glow even more. It was then he realized that she was beautiful.

"What do you want?" She almost cringes at the weary tone in her voice. She has gotten so used to treating him like a tiger with her walls up and her arsenal of harsh words ready to show him that he couldn't hurt her. But in reality, she was a tired girl who gave herself to a boy who didn't want anything from her and it broke her heart over and over again until there was nothing left to break.

"To talk." He says.

A pause elicited from a brief moment of consideration passes through her but she is just so exhausted that her better judgement flies out the window and she leaves the door open, retreating back inside. He shuts the door quietly and follows her chakra signature until he finds her seated sideways with her elbow propped up on the arm of her couch. Her eyes motion to the chair in front of her and he sits.

"You're here," She says after the silence began to grow overbearing. "Now talk."

He can't recall a time when she was this blunt with him. It bothers him more than he would like to admit and he shifts uncomfortably in his chair.

"I'm sorry."

"I already told you that your apologies mean nothing to me." He can't tell whether or not she believes this wholeheartedly, but her curt tone is enough to make him falter.

"Sakura." He is getting impatient because why can't she see he gets it now?

"Look," She says as she settles her gaze on him. "I found out what happened to your family a year after you left and I tried, my goodness, I _tried _to give you everything I could when you came back and I'm sorry but I don't have anything for you anymore. I fought for you for a long time so please excuse me if I no longer have the energy to keep going."

She speaks with such conviction that even surprises herself. But she keeps this achievement under her mask of cool neutrality as she steadies her gaze. She will not break in front of him again.

"I was wrong." He says. He's grasping at straws but he just needs her to see.

Suddenly, the sound of her rising voice brings them both to their feet and she's screaming at him. He can only stand there with slightly widened eyes and parted lips as the words tumble out of her mouth.

"You were wrong?" She has a dangerous look in her eyes and he realizes that his poor choice of words just opened Pandora's box. "No fucking shit, you were wrong! Do you know how it feels to be _rejected_ so many times? I'm a human being, not a rubber band. I have been trying since the very beginning and you just wouldn't have it but did I give up? No. Because I knew that the people who need love the most push it away. So I kept trying. Do you know how emotionally _exhausted_ I am? That time before you and Naruto had it out right after the war, I felt like I couldn't breathe! Now here you are, in my fucking house at almost one o'clock in the morning, telling me what I've known _all my fucking life_?"

She's breathing heavily and her petite frame rises and falls with each intake of ragged breath. He knows his time is almost up and he decides to pull the card that he had been saving all night. If this didn't evoke any sort of reaction out of her, then he would leave and never come back. But the simple thought of that scared him more than words could say.

"If I still have a place in that heart of yours, even if it's a little one, then let me stay." His voice is barely controlled but it's quiet and low and loud enough for her to catch.

She almost laughs at the irony. If someone had told her that Sasuke Uchiha would be using those exact words of hers to her sometime soon, she would've replied with a chakra-loaded punch and yell at them for being so stupid. But here he was, doing just that, with a pleading look in his eyes as he waited for her to respond.

"I've been trying to make myself give up, you know." A gravelly grit can be heard underneath her usually smooth tone as the rigidity leaves her. "I'm mad at myself for bothering to love someone who is just so damned hard to love. But at the same time, I was taught to never take the easy way out. So I loved you, I loved you, I loved you. I still love you."

He releases a breath he had been unconsciously holding and a sense of peace settles in him.

"I'm sorry for making the lady wait," He says teasingly. "But you must've known I would have fallen in love with you eventually. It's inevitable, really."

"Don't push it, Uchiha." Her terse statement contradicts the growing smirk on her face. She tries not to pay attention to each word individually. _He's in love with me? Oh, sweet irony._

He laughs softly and then he's next to her, taking her into his arms and they're kissing. Lips pressed together in an action of such raw emotion that she can't feel her toes anymore. He tastes exactly how she has imagined he would and he smells so _Sasuke_ that it makes her smile. It's leisurely and passionate and it fills the empty spaces between her bones. They kiss like lost lovers who have all the time in the world, because they do.

She decides that she would have waited all of her life for something like this.


End file.
